Dark Victory Page #3

The operation was a brilliant success.

But the patient just happened to die.

- That's a pretty old joke, Fred.

- Is it?

Look at any brain surgeon's

mortality rate...

you'll find out just how unfunny it is.

Are you quitting because

you've lost your nerve?

What?

- What else can a man think?

- I'm going back to medicine.

- What do you mean, medicine?

- A little laboratory on a farm in Vermont.

Medical Research Bureau is backing me.

Fisher will do the pathology.

Incidentally, the best man

in the country.

How many men would give their eyeteeth

for a practice you're throwing away?

- What is this research, actually?

- Cells.

- Cells?

- Brain cells.

Why do healthy, normal cells go berserk,

grow wild? Do you know?

- No.

- Nobody knows!

But we call them cysts and gliomas

and tumors and cancers.

We hope to cure with the knife

when we don't even know the cause.

Our patients have faith in us

because we're doctors and...

Tell the boys they can split up

my practice. And welcome.

You and Pasteur.

Someday, somebody will discover

a serum that will be to these growths...

what insulin is to diabetes

and antitoxin is to diphtheria.

And maybe earn his title of

Doctor of Medicine.

- Yes?

- Dr. Parsons is here.

- He is?

- He insists.

Well, I suppose I should be polite.

- I must be going.

- Your train.

Yes, I know.

- So long, Fred, old boy. You'll be back.

- Don't hold your breath.

- Good luck, old man.

- Thanks.

- Fred, can't you put this thing off?

- Sorry, doctor, I've closed my office.

- Have you read the case history?

- Oh, you mean this gossip sheet?

- A wire manufacturer's daughter?

- Oh, please, never mind that.

This girl's desperately ill.

I've been watching her like a hawk,

and she's been losing ground each day.

Well, if two minutes

will do you any good, I'll talk.

- What's this about headaches?

- She's been having them persistently.

- Even before the accident, I suspect.

- Before?

She calls them hangovers.

Three weeks? And you wait until now?

You don't know that girl.

She's a very stubborn patient.

Only yesterday she went to a revival

of Cyrano in the afternoon...

and played bridge half the night.

She won't cooperate.

- She won't even tell me anything.

- Won't talk, huh?

Fred.

We're old friends, and I'm desperate.

I brought this little girl into the world.

Took care of her father until he died.

If she's such a great horsewoman,

why was she thrown?

That's it.

It was a queer sort of accident.

She crashed into

the right wing of a jump...

almost as if she'd held her horse

deliberately at it.

I was there. I saw it.

- You're sure it was the right side?

- Yes. Why?

In that case, your best bet

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